School of Health & Wellbeing

Andrea Williamson and Ross McQueenie joined fellow research team members David Ellis from Lancaster University and Phil Wilson from Aberdeen University at St Andrews House Scottish Government on 30th May 2019. They presented their work on Serial Missed Appointments in the NHS at the Complex and Multiple Needs Seminar Series.

The key published findings so far are:

• Patients who miss more than 2 GP appointments per year are likely to be socially vulnerable and have poorer health outcomes
• Practice level factors - the strongest predictor of missing multiple appointments is a practice appointment delay of 2-3 days
• Patients who experience high socio-economic deprivation who are registered in practices in affluent settings are at highest risk of missing multiple appointments
• Patient level factors - patients who experience high socio-economic deprivation, those who are aged 19-30 and over 90 years of age are most likely to miss multiple appointments
• There is a ‘dose response’ with morbidity and mortality outcomes - patients with more long term conditions are at greater risk of  missing multiple appointments 
• Missing multiple GP appointments is a strong risk factor for greatly increased mortality

Read more about this research

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First published: 14 March 2018